CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR 



SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD AND THE UNITED STATES 



NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Early life I. SPENCER FuLLERTON BAIRD was born at Reading, 



Pennsylvania, in 1823. His ancestry was mixed, - 

 English, Scotch, and German. He early lost his father, 

 and his mother, with her seven children, moved to 

 Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Spencer Baird and his brother, 

 William, began in their early "teens" to collect birds. 

 As in the case of Darwin and many other famous 

 naturalists, the love of collecting was the founda- 

 tion of a scientific career. With the specimens, data 

 or facts were also collected, and all had to be set in 

 order. This gathering of materials and arranging them 

 is the method of science ; further developments merely 

 result from the growth of experience and opportunity, 

 inborn traits Baird's diary at the age of sixteen shows some of the 

 qualities which distinguished him through life. On 

 May 25, 1839, he writes : 



About one A.M. gust came up; light wind some thunder rained 

 violently for one quarter hour. Very warm all day. About two P.M. went 

 out to creek with gun. Shot some small birds, principally flycatchers. 

 Home at seven. Skinned and opened birds until ten. 



These are unimportant details, but they show a love 

 of precision, a quality fundamental for good scientific 

 work. In later years this attribute had an important 

 bearing on the development of American ornithology. 

 Dr. D. S. Jordan says of Baird : 



He taught us to say, not that the birds from such and such a region show 

 such and such peculiarities, but that "I have the following specimens, which 

 indicate the presence of certain peculiarities in the birds of certain regions. 

 The first was taken on such and such a day of such a month, at such a place, 

 by such a person, and is numbered so and so on the National Museum 

 records." Thus it was always possible to distinguish between the things 

 Baird knew and those he surmised, and to refer to the very specimens on 

 which he based his opinion. 



520 



